Dear Senator XX,

I’m contacting you to provide some information on a bill we hope to pass in the 2025 legislative session to update the existing Night Sky Protection Act and to ask for your support.

New Mexico has a valuable resource in its dark skies: they attract visitors and new residents, are part of our cultural heritage, and are important for human health and wildlife. The state recognized this in 1999 and passed the Night Sky Protection Act. However, much has changed in the last 25 years, and light pollution has continued to increase. Fortunately, new technology and increased awareness has led us to recognize that we can implement responsible lighting that meets or exceeds needs including safety and security while at the same time protecting our skies and the values that they offer.

The New Mexico Chapter of DarkSky Interntaional is proposing some small, but impactful, modifications to the Night Sky Protection Act, requiring new lighting to be shielded to a modern standard and to remove some of the exemptions in the original act that are no longer necessary. We’ve been working with Senator Liz Stefanics to develop this, and presented it before three interim committees last fall, which led to some revisions and improvements. Additional details are given in the executive summary below and are included in the attached package which also provides information on some common questions, some information on the value of dark skies, and the current draft of the legislation.

We would like to hear of any questions or concerns that you might have so we can attempt to address them. We would love to have your support and, if you are so inclined, your co-sponsorship of the bill.

This may not be the most pressing issue that the state faces, but it is one on which we can reach agreement and make progress. While the proposed legislation won’t solve our light pollution issues, it will prevent them from getting worse, and give us time to pursue education and outreach efforts to make further improvements.

I’ll be happy to follow-up by phone if I don’t hear from you, and would be even happier to schedule a face-to-face conversation about the issue.

Executive summary:

We propose to modify the existing Night Sky Protection Act in a small, but impactful, way: we will require all new lighting to be shielded to the current standard recommended by DarkSky International (at least 95% of the total light from a luminaire to be directed below an angle of 10 degrees from a horizontal plane), with a few common sense exceptions:

• we establish a partial exception for brighter lights near the ground that are illuminating upward: these must be directed at something and not at the sky
• we establish an exception for fainter lights near the ground
• we establish an exception for strings of small lights and temporary holiday lighting.
• we maintain an exemption for highway lighting signs
• we add a total exemption for temporary lighting associated with film or television production, construction, or emergency services.
• we add an exemption for digital electronic billboards

We remove exemptions:

• for new noncompliant lights that are turned off after 11:00.
• for new traditionally-lit advertising signs
• for new lights at farms, ranches, dairies, feedlots or industrial, mining or oil and gas facilities, but delay the implementation of the shielding requirement for these facilities until 2027, to allow implementations currently in progress to proceed without modification.

These exemptions are removed because responsible lighting can still ensure both safety and effectiveness.

There are no requirements for modification of existing lights or their operation until they are replaced.